Bowers and Wilkins 802 verses Focal 1038 BE

[enit]

I can certainly justify why McIntosh is better than most apart from the subjective listening test.

Maybe Raidho can shed some light on his justification for the benefit of readers.

Then we can get somewhere, not just about which is high end or not.

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[BVLDARI]

Originally Posted by enit

I met a sound engineer who said to me that abbey studios seldom produce great albums these days because of the system used in there.
B&w and Classe tri-amp. It doesn't translate. Go figure.

Interesting. What does your sound engineer say about Skywalker Sound (Studios)? They use B&W speakers and seem to have racked up quite the award collection...

[enit]

Originally Posted by BVLDARI

Interesting. What does your sound engineer say about Skywalker Sound (Studios)? They use B&W speakers and seem to have racked up quite the award collection...

Geez... I don't know. Just wondering if awards are given for composition or sound? How are they judged?

Anyway, I will forsake my personal stance on b&w in this case, because I know it doesn't get anywhere when it is subjective, and can come across as being arrogant and offensive to b&w lovers. Just for the record, I do like them, and they rank top ten in my list.

Please accept my apologies.

I will be open to discussing driver technologies used that compares the Electra to the 802s.
I might have written it earlier, but due to the brand "challenges" that have had our egos involved, it would have been masked.

Instead of saying "I think this and that", I can speak about speed/force factor, rigidity, damping factor, etc.

So feel free to ask.

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[BVLDARI]

enit, I didn’t take this personally I am just saying that taking one random person’s point of view as a fact is rather silly especially when the other guy has “official” awards.

All in all, I stand by my statement that I like B&W diamonds better than the Focals. (Full disclosure I had a focal system in a car a few years ago). I spent a decent amount of time auditioning various speakers and like I said – I liked a lot about the Focal – just not enough. And I will go a step further and say that I could have gotten a much better deal on Focal than I did on B&W. And even factoring money into it, I still bought the B&W because that is what I liked.

We could argue what’s technically better and what you think and what he thinks and what she thinks. At the end, the reality is that either of these lines is a very fine choice and whoever buys either will be very happy for a long time. I hope that this we can agree on.

[enit]

Of course. ")

My personal opinion is that these impressions need to have a benchmark/reference points of how we view/review systems. Else one person's point of view is only as good as someone else's. If we are able to show, or reference system A as a neutral system, and identifying and accepting System B to be colored, but more enjoyable by how much in the frequency spectrum, to what degree, will our experiences be able to translate from one user to another.

Example: System B has 3db more gain in 125hz, than in system A. But I like it, and I'm aware of it. And the last thing the person should do is saying system B is a reference system, or a neutral system, because system b is designed according to his taste. If you get my drift.

From what we have discussed, it's all subjective, and that's the old way and current way of "measuring" a system (or any component in the system).

Of course preference is still the best indicator of a system. Just that the experience is less universally "transferable", and should not be imposed.

There're other factors from tone that needs to be considered too. Imaging- placement of instruments across a sound stage, off-axis performance, power handling, linearity, distortion, impedance, some of which are amplifier related, some of which are driver configuration related. TM design versus MTM design, versus MT design. How speakers address known acoustical challenges, how the speakers are designed to achieve a particular acoustical response. Approach taken, whether it is measured to a targeted frequency response, or abilities and inabilities inherent from drivers, and design. There's are reason why speakers sound the way they do in a typical environment. I was certainly hoping to share these effects to the Original Thread.

These topics are interesting, and these are topics I do love to explore. Which are also big considerations when Focal 1038 Be is placed next to B&W802.

Hope you can see where I'm coming from too.

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[steve ringler]

Enit, point for point I could not agree more! A brilliant critique. Having owned both B&Ws and Focals , I can testify that the Focals are obviously in another stratum than B&Ws. As for Mcintosh electronics, simply as good as it gets! Steve
,

[enit]

Originally Posted by steve ringler

Enit, point for point I could not agree more! A brilliant critique. Having owned both B&Ws and Focals , I can testify that the Focals are obviously in another stratum than B&Ws. As for Mcintosh electronics, simply as good as it gets! Steve ,

Why, thank you Steve. Our ears agree. ")

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[Rod#S]

That's why I love this hobby, sooo many different ears I would take a Paradigm S8 over any of the Electra models. Sound wise I find them a toss up but like the looks of the Paradigms better but would take a B&W 804 Diamond over either any day. Personally I don't care that the Focal's may be a superior built product but a speaker is a musical instrument as far as I'm concered and part of why we love musical instruments, or at least why I do is because of their strenghts and weaknesses in certain areas. If we all strove for flat frequencies responses, etc., etc. we would all have quaint, boring little studio monitors

[BVLDARI]

Originally Posted by Rod#S

That's why I love this hobby, sooo many different ears I would take a Paradigm S8 over any of the Electra models. Sound wise I find them a toss up but like the looks of the Paradigms better but would take a B&W 804 Diamond over either any day. personally I don't care that the Focal's may be a superior built product but a speaker is a musical instraument as far as I'm concered and part of why we love musical instruments, or at least why I do is because of their strenghts and weaknesses in certain areas. If we all strove for flat frequencies responses, etc., etc. we would all have quaint, boring little studio monitors

agreed.

[o0OBillO0o]

Originally Posted by Rod#S

That's why I love this hobby, sooo many different ears I would take a Paradigm S8 over any of the Electra models. Sound wise I find them a toss up but like the looks of the Paradigms better but would take a B&W 804 Diamond over either any day. Personally I don't care that the Focal's may be a superior built product but a speaker is a musical instrument as far as I'm concered and part of why we love musical instruments, or at least why I do is because of their strenghts and weaknesses in certain areas. If we all strove for flat frequencies responses, etc., etc. we would all have quaint, boring little studio monitors

image-2513547480.jpg

Music is mastered with studio monitors.

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